Use my "old" storage HDD in new rebuild?

I am gonna do a fresh install of Windows 7 onto a new SSD in my rebuilt PC. In my "old" PC, I had a hard drive with the OS on it, and two other hard drives installed. I want to take just one of those hard drives and put it into my rebuild after I get Windows installed and working on the SSD. Do you think I can just plug in the hard drive and it will be seen and continue its function as a storage drive as it was on my "old" PC, or is there something I will need to do once it is hooked up so it will function properly, like in Disk Management? I know I don't want to format it, because all my saved stuff will go away. Any advice and help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

As long as it's only data that's on it, it's basically plug and play, if you had that drive included in your libraries, you'll have to add it again on the new install, but that's about it. If there are programs on it, most won't work, you'll likely have to reinstall them.

Robert, remember to disconnect all drives except for the new SSD when you install Windows. Once Windows is running and you have all your drivers installed and you're satisfied, then put in the other drive. It will show up as drive D in disk management. You could put the other one in, too, and it would then be E:.

As tijo wrote, programs installed on the extra drives will be problematic. You could simply delete all those folders and any others that are something other than the files you want.

One - you have already mentioned this but it bears repeating: Do not connect any additional drives until after the new Windows install is finished.

Two: It will almost certainly work fine... for reading the existing files. You may (repeat MAY) encounter problems when writing to it (deleting existing files, creating files on it, creating directories on it) as you will not be seen as the owner of all the stuff you put there while it was on your old machine.

This is because your security ID on your new install will be different than it was on the old.

To fix this you simply need to take ownership of the directories and files on the old drive. Or set them all so that the Authenticated Users group has "full control."

(No, there is no way to set your security ID on the new install to match that on the old. If you want to do that, do an upgrade or clone of your existing OS on the old drive.)